Page 59 of KAI Tortured

Fuck. I have this void in my life, and it’s because of her. I miss her. We all do.

“Tell us, already!” someone shouts from the crowd, and I’m brought back to the Delgados’ bar with all these people standing in front of me.

Logan places his hand on my shoulder. “You got this!”

“Good luck, because I wouldn’t know where to start,” Kai mutters.

“Right.” I look around at everyone. “It all started when Maisy Roy, or as you now know, Maisy Slavinovich, showed up at my house.”

“Let’s hope she’s not the new boss!” someone shouts, and the whole crowd bursts into laughter.

Logan and Kai snicker, but I’m sure they realize that Maisy runs our lives and we run the lives of everyone else here. Like second-hand smoke, she is affecting them. I laugh inwardly.

I raise my hand, signaling to everyone to quiet down. “We’ve been uncovering things for months, ever since the war with the Slavs started last year. What we discovered was, in short, this.” I look at Logan, then at Kai, and smile. “The three of us are half-brothers.”

Silence descends again, before a shriek of laughter fills the room. More people cackle and join in. Apparently, this is a joke.

I don’t understand what’s so funny. I glance over at Logan, who’s frowning, and then at Kai, whose jaw tightens at the audacity of someone laughing at him. I suppose we have to understand that the concept of us being a family was a no-go until only a short while ago.

Explaining this is going to be difficult. Amid the noise, I spot Tom, the older man in the weathered leather jacket that looks like it hasn’t been taken off since the last time we saw him here, making his way toward us. He walks up and stops in front of the crowd, then turns to face them all.

“It’s true,” he announces, and turns to Kai. “Your father told me. I had to keep it confidential. It’s how it was.” He shrugs.

“Who’s this old man?” one of the Cartes shouts out.

A couple of Vitalis jeer. “He’s drunk, take him away!”

But as the crowd notices the stunned expressions on the Delgados’ faces, the mood quickly changes.

Kai looks floored. “You knew?”

Tom nods.

Everyone looks to be in shock. Before I let myself get distracted, I focus on finishing my speech.

“And so, when I say one boss, I mean one syndicate. We’re not gonna have three separate families fighting on the streets of New York.”

“Is this right, Logan?” Uncle Jon interjects. He seems in a hurry to stop Logan from saying something he could regret. “I know your father hated Willer and Mickey.”

“Uncle Jon, we checked twice,” Logan tells him, and then addresses the crowd. “Everyone, who remembers, around thirteen years ago, when my father took me to the deserted factory over in Brooklyn and pitted me against Kai and Orion? He told me I was to make my first kill that day.”

“I remember that,” Uncle Jon says.

“Yeah, me too,” Uncle Colletti says. “I was there.”

Tom nods, along with a few other men in the crowd.

“That was the day Kai, Orion, and I met. And it was the day we made a pact, to watch each other’s backs.”

Logan steps in between Kai and me, placing his hands on our shoulders. “We didn’t really need a DNA test to tell us we’re brothers. We knew that a long time before we actually found out.”

“So… you… you talked to each other all this time?” Zeena asks.

“Yeah,” Kai confirms.

“How is it possible?” someone shouts.

“That’s a different conversation. I’m sure you’ll find out soon,” I say.

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